Evil Liberals Keep Making Republicans Look Racist

For the second time in a week, a Colorado field office for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has been targeted.

KUSA-TV reported Friday that the campaign’s field office in Conifer, Colorado, was found with swastikas spray-painted on it.According to The Denver Post,
a spokesperson for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department said a
deputy answering a vandalism report that morning found three windows and
five campaign signs for the president had been vandalized, though he
did not know what had been spray-painted on them.

This, at least, is what we hear every time it appears that the
right's historical racist element is bubbling back up to the surface of
American conservatism thanks to the race-baiting dog-whistle campaigns
being conducted by mainstream Republicans -- such as last week's appearance of overtly white-supremacist sentiments at a Mitt Romney rally in Ohio.

It was what we immediately heard from the usual predictable quarters
-- not concern about how best to drive out the racist element cropping
up on the right, but rather, blame for any liberals who dared point this
out. Over at Althouse's place, this was the response:

Shame on you and everyone else who slavered at the opportunity to serve up this racial obscenity.

Ah yes, the old "bloody shirt" diversion: The problem isn't the racism on display, it's those evil demagoging liberals pointing it out who are the real issue.

The picture shows Barack Obama, the 44th President of the
United States, naked except for a primitive loincloth, with a bone
through his nose, witch-doctor style. Underneath the image, a caption is
written in black and white: 'ObamaCare - coming soon to a clinic near
you.' The 'C' is depicted as a classic Communist hammer and sickle, a
symbol not as regularly seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.

"That's not right. It's racist," said Brinson, a 46-year-old
African-American, pointing with a visible wince on his face to the
doctored image of Obama as witch-doctor. "I understand that this is
America, but the president doesn't deserve this. This is wrong."
But Skuby, 66, a Spring Lake resident, saw nothing wrong with
displaying his anti-Obama visual, which has been up since last week, for
the world to see.

"A lot of people feel the way I feel, but are just afraid to say it,"
said Skuby, who said that public response on the street in front of his
store ran "70 percent positive" in favor of the display's anti-Obama
sentiments. "It always comes down to the race card."

Now, I'm not sure how to explain this guy's rabid recitation of every
anti-Obama meme on the planet in his window display, notably those
favored by the Fox News bloc, but he simply cannot be an actual
conservative, because that would make them look bad, and this simply is
an impossibility on Planet Wingnut.

He even pulls out every right-winger's favorite "race card" -- his grandkid is mixed race, so he can't possibly be a racist:

Skuby felt that the proverbial "race card" was one that
he could flip over in his favor because of his particular family
circumstances.

"The middle one is my granddaughter," said Skuby, holding up a photo
of his now 17-year old biracial grandchild Brett, flanked by two other
grandchildren who are white.

"My son married a girl that had a biracial
kid. She is every bit a part of our family as the other two in this
picture. I'm not racist. And as long as my grandchild doesn't think I'm a
racist, I'm perfectly fine with all of this."

Whatever the case, the obvious conclusion -- that the American Right
has always contained, and continues to contain, both racist and
extremist elements that act out in violent and repugnant ways, and that the current campaign is bringing them back into the mainstream of politics
-- simply can't be true. Because otherwise, all of their mainstream
enablers on the right would be forced to recognize that their refusal to
admit their existence and their resurgence is in fact empowering these
racists by providing them with endless wink-and-nudge cover.

Cold reality: Conservatives are not even remotely serious about
confronting or dealing with racism in America, no matter how they
protest that they "oppose" "racist material". And they prove it to us
every day.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.